Michel/Striker (11 page)

Male.

The word is long and strange as it’s dragged from my brain. A shudder goes through me. Males scare me. Yet, I want them. Need them to survive. They want me too. All the time. It didn’t used to be this way…I think. I think…I can’t escape it. But this male—is different. Not like the others. No madness. Only hunger. Only desire. And touching. Heat. He is holding me. He is inside me.

I open my mouth, try to speak. But nothing comes. I want to know the creat—the
male’s
name. If he has a name. The others…just numbers, like me. No looking into my eyes. No words. No holding. I was food. Something to consume.

“Are you going to bite me again, my little puma?” the male asks as he continues to thrust inside me.

I like his voice. I try. Push for words. My throat. But nothing comes. Can I speak? Can I do anything but growl and grunt and groan?

His eyes flash, not with anger over my struggle, but with understanding. He leans down and covers my mouth, takes my tongue inside and sucks. The feeling is wondrous, and I moan as my body turns to fire. It wasn’t like this. Before. With the others. As humans watched. Staring, assessing, while they put pencil to paper.

I’m so filled. He fills me. My sex and my mouth and everything in between. The creature—NO!
Think
. The male. This male. Who is he?

Where am I?

In that moment, he drags his mouth away and his eyes are on mine again. I’m going to break. Open. I wrap my legs around him and let him pound into me. Let him fill me.

Fuck! Goddess
,
if only I could have you,
he rasps.

Hot, wet, he comes inside me. And as I follow him, as I cry into the cold air and the gray light, something clicks in my mind. I reach for the male and clasp his face. “Your name,” I whisper. “Who are you?”

His eyes, once glazed, so green, focus on mine. “Fuck, you’re back?”

Where was I?

And then, like a tsunami, my mind is deluged with images. Of the clinic. Of the drugs, and the needles, and the pain. Of being taken…from where? My home, my family…then male after male. They want me, and yet they don’t. So much pain from desire. But nothing works. Not my hand. Nothing except the males…

Then days of silence. No males. No nothing. All pain.

And blackness.

Fear. It’s inside me. I think I’m screaming.

Pain. In my arm. And the warmth is gone. The safety. I’m not filled anymore. Not held anymore. The green eyes…

“What the hell happened?” I hear a female voice. So worried, but far away.

“She spoke.” The male. The creature. I need him. Want him. “But then…shit, it was like it was too much for her. She went crazy. Started screaming.”

I’m fading. I reach for him. But it’s cold air.

“You can get dressed and go,” the female says. “I’ll take it from here.”

“You’re sure?”

“Go.”

I can’t stay awake.

I miss him already.

***

Striker

“You look fresh as a fucking daisy,” Pride says the second we shift out of our cats and enter the Suits’ headquarters.

I don’t answer the young Hunter. He’s new and therefore unclear about the way I work. Quiet. Capable. Done. Instead, I take the stairs two at a time.

“So,” he presses, following close behind me. “How was it? Your…” I can practically hear him grinning. “Assignment?”

“Over.” The mansion is running at high speed today. Suits and a few Geeks, all focused, deep in conversation or eyes glued to their screens. Only a handful look up as we walk by, and just one acknowledges my presence. Life inside the Wildlands has changed now that the outside world is aware of our existence. I constantly feel on guard. It’s a shame, but it’s reality.

“Come on, brother,” Pride continues, irritating me as we walk down the hall. “Give me something.”

“I’m not your brother.”

But he isn’t listening. Which doesn’t bode well for him. “Three days with a gorgeous female puma who’s so amped up all she wants is to get fu—”

I have him against the wall before he can say another word. No. Before he can say
that
word. My puma is scratching to get out, but I harness it. It would kill this male if I let it.

“Listen to me,” I say softly. Behind me is a conference room. It’s gone quiet. “Say another word about her, and I’ll see that you don’t say another word ever again.”

The blond male’s blue eyes widen. “Shit, sorry, all right? Just talking. Getting to know one another. That kind of thing.”

I release him and back off. “Not interested, Rookie.”

“Lian and Rage were right about you,” he says, glancing around at the Suits watching our interaction. “I should’ve listened.”

“Yes, you should’ve.” I turn and head for Raphael’s office. My quick anger surprises me. Especially in regard to the female. Normally, I would’ve ignored the stupid male’s comments altogether.

The leader of the Diplomats is seated behind his oak desk, long blond hair pulled back in a leather thong, nose in a bunch of paperwork. Without looking up, he points to the leather chairs facing him. “Have a seat.”

Pride practically vaults into the chair. “What’s up, boss?” he asks as if nothing at all just happened outside the door.

Raph looks up, glances at me. I shrug.
Young cub.
What else is there to say? He nods, then begins, “As you both are aware, there is a group of our kind in the Everglades.”

“The Cadejo,” I say.

He nods. “Hiss is there now with his mate, Gia, and her family. I have not been in contact with them. We thought this might happen, but I don’t like it. I think it’s time to connect. I want to establish diplomatic relations with them. That’s where you come in.”

“Cool,” Pride says, grinning.

“Is it just going to be the two of us?” I ask through gritted teeth.

Raphael’s gold eyes find mine. I’m hoping to see sympathy or humor there. But it’s all seriousness. “Shadow will be going too. I don’t want to send too many Pantera, or all Hunters. I don’t want them thinking we’re infiltrating. Plus I need my most experienced here in the Wildlands.”

I nod. “Understood.”

“We want to make friends with the Cadejo, Striker,” he says pointedly. “We may need them some day.”
Soon
, he doesn’t say. But he doesn’t have to. I know exactly what’s at stake with humans sniffing around our borders and men like Locke imprisoning and using our kind.

Leaning forward in his chair, like a child waiting to see his first Dyesse lily bloom, Pride asks, “When do we leave?”

“Three days.”

“Hot damn. I’ll be ready.”

I stare at Raphael. The male is a master at keeping every thought, every feeling hidden. But so am I, and I know there’s something he’s not telling me. Something he’s waiting to tell me.

And I know I’m right when he turns to my young partner. “Pride, go to Shadow’s office. She’s waiting for you.”

“What?” he balks.

“Yes,” I say quickly. “Tell your sister hello for me. Tell her I have great sympathy for her.”

The young Hunter growls low in his chest, but gets up and heads for the door. He may be a young, rookie cub, but he is Pantera, and would never defy Raphael.

As soon as he’s gone, I look at the leader of the Suits. The seriousness in his eyes is gone. In fact, he’s trying hard to suppress a smile.

“That wasn’t very nice.”

I sniff. “Neither was putting me with an infant. Especially when you know I have the nurturing skills of a mother wolf spider.”

“You will not eat this young. He’s entirely too big.”

“Don’t be so sure. I almost took a bite out of his larynx just outside your door.”

“He does ask inane questions at times.”

“Or disgusting, insulting, degrading ones.”

Raph’s brows draw together. “What do you mean?”

I shake my head. “Nothing.” But he remains silent, waiting—it’s his way—so I halfheartedly explain. “He wanted details about my…mission with Twelve.”

“Ahhhh…” He eyes me, studies me for a moment, then leans back in his chair. “She’s doing well.”

“I didn’t ask.”

He nods. “You didn’t, but I thought maybe you’d like to know.” He inhales sharply, curses. “She’s telling Doc Julia about what happened to her in there. What Locke and the others did to her. All in the name of baby production and more pure Pantera blood for his master. I can’t believe our own were treated this way.” His puma flashes, the shape in his eyes changing. “I want to kill every last one of them.”

We will
. It’ll take time, but we’ll have our revenge. “Did she offer any details about who else held her captive? Who worked beside Locke? Names? Locations?”

His eyes move over my face, like he’s trying to understand my lack of ferocity over what was done to Twelve.
Being a prisoner takes many forms, boss
.

“Not yet,” he says. “There’s much to ease out of her.”

I cock my head.

“It will take a gentle hand.”

“There’s a reason why you sent Rookie to visit his sister, isn’t there? Not to just shoot the shit with me?”

He nods. “She doesn’t want to stay at the clinic. And after what she’s been through, I completely understand why.”

What this has to do with me… “So let her stay elsewhere.”

“We have. We…will. But—”

There it is. The
but
. The reason I’m sitting here.

“She isn’t comfortable staying alone.”

The emphasis on that last word has my gut tightening. It was just three days ago that Raphael called me in here for Mission One: fuck the female back to health and sanity. Now he’s looking for what? Someone to guard her?

My eyes flash ferocity at my superior. “No.”

He sighs. “It’s just until you leave for the Everglades.”

“No.”

“Goddess, Striker,” he grinds out. “There isn’t that option. Not if I order you to.”

I push forward in my chair, aware of the aggression of my body language. “Raphael, think about this—”

“I have.”

“No, you haven’t. Not if you keep coming up with the same answer. You know me. What I’m capable of, and what I’m not. And there’s a lot more things in the ‘not’ department when it comes to females. How you can believe I’m the best Pantera for this—”

He cuts me off. “I don’t.”

The tone, and the truth, stall me. “Then…why?”

He shakes his head. “It’s not me who wants you for this job, Striker. I do know you.”

My brows go up.

“It’s her.”

“What?” I exclaim.

He looks as mystified as I feel. “She feels safe with you.”

I laugh. The idea is so fucking preposterous…I mean, sure I can keep her safe in the physical sense. No one would get to her, unless they stopped my heart. But she’s so not safe in the feelings and emotions department. I stopped knowing how to talk to, comfort or support females a long time ago. Somewhere around the time my mate left me for my twin brother.

I push out of my chair.

“Where are you going?” Raphael demands.

“To speak with her. Reason with her. Where is she?”

He doesn’t say anything.

“Raphael?”

“You hurt her more than she already is, and I swear I will kick your ass myself.”

“That’s my fucking point,” I tell him. “That’s what I’m trying
not
to do.”

He looks away. “Fine. I told you. She’s back at the cottage.”

Right. I head out the door. The cottage. Martha Stewart Hell. I sniff, shake my head. The poor female. No doubt she’s confusing my three-day fuck mission for true care and concern. Time to show her the real Striker. The one no female wants by her side. On top of her or between her legs, yes. But by her side, never.

CHAPTER 3

Twelve

It’s hard to believe I’m safe. It’s hard to sit here on this couch, in this lovely cottage, with the sun streaming in through the window, and not shake. Not anticipate someone jumping out from another room or behind the door and sticking a needle into my skin—then just a few seconds later, a hungry, vacant, drugged-up male climbing on top of me…

“What else can I get you?”

My heart kicks in my chest.

But I have to believe it. I have to keep reminding myself that I am not a victim. Not anymore. Because it’s the only way I’m going to stay lucid—and find out the truth.

I glance up. The woman, the human doctor, Julia, is coming out of the bedroom. Her long blond hair is pulled back in a ponytail which sort of swishes as she walks. She’s helped me, at the clinic and with coming back here. She’s been nothing but kind. But do I trust her? Absolutely not. I trust no one. Especially medical staff.

Especially doctors.

It was a doctor who took me, abducted me from my home, and brought me to one of the labs. Sold me.

If I could only remember where that was…where home is… It’s at the very edges of my mind.

“I’m fine,” I tell her, forcing a smile. “Thank you again for the clothes.”

“It’s my pleasure. And incredibly easy as we’re the same size.” She smiles brightly, and I get the distinct impression she wants to chat, make friends. But I’m not interested. Everyone who’s come into my life since the abduction, even those who’ve acted kind and concerned, have hurt me or betrayed me. There’s only one who’s ever truly made me feel safe.